7 vital questions in uncertain times — and how to answer them

Panic is a familiar — if unwelcome — emotion for many of us. It is also an unsustainable one. Like a state of excitement, it is too psychologically exhausting to maintain a sense of panic for long. What goes up must come down. 

Great leaders intuit that panic is not a healthy foundation for decision-making. So they don’t participate in it. Instead, they make choices that are mindful of the medium to long-term impact on their organisations, or simply delay them for a calmer time. They remain grounded, knowing that what matters most is not what is happening now — but what happens next.

Unforeseen events have a habit of changing how we each relate to the world: our wants, needs, expectations, assumptions and frames of reference. In the light of a new dawn, people tend to seek different answers to the questions they have about their lives. In turn, this changes the demands they place on organisations — with corresponding impacts on markets, categories, competitive sets, products and services, and so on. And someone, something, somewhere, will emerge to satisfy that demand.

So, when panic subsides, opportunity resides. But how do you turn this to your advantage? What sort of questions should you be asking yourself and your team?

Here are seven that, in our practice, we have come to regard as non-negotiable when leading through change. If you can answer them well — which is to say, in a compelling, relevant and distinctive way — then you are all set for the road ahead. If you can’t, it’s time to stop panicking, and start planning.

Q1. Over the next 6 months, what does victory look like?

At the heart of this question is “what does it mean for us to win?” Both the timeframe and the terminology are key.

Entrepreneurial leaders in particular are often good at defining the next week and the next decade — but not the intervening period. But, during times of upheaval, the art of strategy is to plan for the medium term. 6 months is an ideal window — not so short as to feel reactive, not so long as to feel abstract or to create the potential for (further) unanticipated disruption.

How to answer it: in terms of what denotes “victory”, it is worth noting that, psychologically-speaking, we tend to aim for the bars that we set for ourselves. This means that setting them high is advisable. If you set your bar at survival, you may achieve that bar but are unlikely to exceed it by any significant margin. But if you set your bar at thriving — to outperform every expectation that you would normally set for your organisation — you might find that it maximises your chances of both survival and growth. So: recalibrate your ambitions, and work out what “thriving” means for you.

Q2. How do we expect customer wants and needs to change?

No-one can predict the future, and anyone who claims to be able to do so is a charlatan (hey, futurists). But, in the face of change, it is possible to generate sensible hypotheses about how you expect the nature of customer demand to change. Because demand drives economies, this is essential for any medium to long-range planning work.

How to answer it: start by consulting the history books. For example, major social, political and economic shocks tend to presage an increase in collectivism — which has interesting implications for businesses that service a world in which the individual has often been sovereign. What might this mean for your organisation?

It is worth paying attention to your own history as well — which is to say, your own career history and the history of your business. How have you observed customer need changing before — and responded to it? Remember that all things are cyclical; today’s trends will likely have shown up in some shape or form in the past.

Q3. Why is our offering still attractive and compelling in this new reality?

“Why bother?” is an uncommon question in business — and among the most useful. It can bring clarity to almost any situation, from the small (“why bother with this meeting?”) to the existential (“why bother being in business at all?”).

In light of the hypothetical shifts in demand that you have predicted, why do you expect your customers to bother with your offering?

How to answer it: write down a one-line justification, and review it honestly with colleagues and peers (preferably those with no dog in the fight). If the answer wouldn’t inspire an averagely sentient member of your target audience to reach for their wallet right there and then, it might be time for a rethink. Many value propositions fall at the “value” hurdle.

What’s more, note that any new offering must be authentic — which is to say: true to your business and your brand in the eyes of its audience. If the customer wouldn’t expect you to do it, then your go-t0-market strategy will be fraught with risk.

Q4. How would we describe our strategy to a 10-year-old?

Very few strategies are fully fit for purpose. A common reason for this is a lack of simplicity, which points to a lack of clarity in thinking and design.

How to answer it: get reductive. It might sound patronising to advocate explaining your strategy in words that a child can understand, but doing so will force clarity of communication. In turn, this will signpost where plans are woolly or flawed.

On a related note, avoiding business jargon is helpful for employee communication and motivation in general. Do you need to “optimise revenue flows via improved channel synergy,” for example, or just do a better job of selling to your audience, no matter when and where they shop? One of these statements is far more credible and emotionally engaging than the other (although a quick skim of many strategy presentations would indicate that we might disagree on which).

Q5. Do our people have the goods — both attitude and skill — to deliver our strategy?

Leaders — particularly entrepreneurial ones — often have a sixth sense about consumer demand and how to take advantage of it.

But these good intentions often collapse in execution because the organisation hasn’t built the competencies, structures or processes to be able to keep the promises it’s making. Almost overnight, the business stops being good at delivering its core product or service and instead becomes mediocre at delivering a new one — a surefire recipe for poor performance.

Times of change also have a habit of upsetting people and draining their energy. Understand: however good your ideas might be, a team of people that is tired or jaded because of recent or historic experience will lack the resources to deliver anything new. Good strategy pays attention to such human factors when appraising feasibility.

How to answer it: go back to basics. Competency frameworks and employee engagement surveys often provide plenty of insights about how stable your foundations are.

Q6. What’s the main thing that could go wrong over the next 6-12 months?

Success often relies on being able to anticipate failure. While crystal balls are once again in short supply, as you look to the near future it is possible to generate hypotheses about what might go wrong with your strategy. Perhaps you are exposed on a huge client relationship. Perhaps you have a track-record of burning cash on unsuccessful innovation. Perhaps your team isn’t able to cope with ambiguity, and end up falling into unnecessary conflict.

How to answer it: get ahead of the future. Perform a pre-mortem, and consider how the insights should influence your strategy.

Q7. Water flows around obstacles — what makes your business capable of adapting in this way?

Taoist philosophy suggests that nature has its own unique way of ensuring balance in all things — and that the art of successful living is not to resist occurrences, but instead to adapt to them like water, flowing effortlessly in keeping with the natural order.

Successful organisations behave like water — which is to say, they are almost endlessly adaptable. They don’t resist political, social, technological or economic change. Instead, they work with it, remaining open minded and flexible.

In your organisation, the source of your adaptability might be cultural, structural or procedural — or (most likely) a combination of all of these elements. How are you building this capacity? What steps can you take over the next 6-12 months to foster it?

How to answer it: convene your senior team for an open discussion on organisational adaptability. (In 98% of firms, this will be the first time such a conversation has happened.) Map where you’re strong, and build from there.

These questions are not easy to answer well. But, in the face of significant change, it is essential to do so.

Start by getting your leadership team together to discuss them. Be on your guard for assumptions or groupthink. Push yourselves hard. Engage help where necessary.

Finally, when the going gets tough, remember that these seven questions — and the answers to them — are also building vital muscle memory. When the world changes again you will be better placed to handle it. And, looking back over the last twenty or so years, only one thing is for certain: constant change is the new normal.

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